Vivo X100 Pro Review: The Best Portrait Camera Of 2023
Vivo's Vivo, unlike its Chinese counterparts Oppo and Xiaomi, doesn't hold big launch events in European or Asian cities.
But among Android phone fans, especially those interested in mobile photography, the X Series has become one of the most anticipated releases of the year. In fact, Vivo's latest flagship X phones had a very good reason to be the best camera phones on the market when they were released. And the newly released X100 Pro is no exception.
In fact, I'd put the "maybe" in one specific category for the X100 Pro: In portrait photography, the X100 Pro is currently the best performing smartphone.
The X100 Pro features a 50MP periscope zoom lens and Zeiss' APO floating design with the new Vario-Apo-Sonnar element. What does this mean in simple terms? The lens can be moved back and forth so that you can focus on objects at different distances. Vivo equipped the camera with a fast f/2.5 aperture and a relatively large 1/2-inch sensor. The result is the most powerful zoom lens device on a phone.
But that's not all, Vivo also has a great software algorithm that I've come to appreciate over the past few years that always optimizes HDR to achieve a balanced dynamic range. There's also a vintage filter that makes photos look less digital and more like a film camera.
Here are some 100mm photos I've taken over the past few weeks using the phone. The zoom lens produces bright, organic-looking images with bokeh so beautiful and natural that it inspired me to become an amateur street photographer and take at least a few hundred photos a day.
Vivo's zoom lens is capable of producing sharper, noise-free images compared to other smartphone zoom cameras. The difference is very noticeable in low light conditions. The cat photos below are remarkably free of noise compared to low-light zoom photos taken with a phone.
I was particularly impressed by this photo taken under the espresso machine. Note that there is a subtle bokeh effect (shrinking the depth of field) in the background and foreground, which gives the image a depth not normally found in smartphone photos.
In addition to the zoom lens, the X100 Pro also has a powerful 1-inch main camera, but it's nothing new like last year's excellent X90 Pro Plus camera.
As for the rest of the phone, it looks similar to last year's phone, but isn't as powerful as its rival, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
The Dimensity chip is powerful enough to handle most everyday tasks, but battery life doesn't seem to last as long as Snapdragon-powered phones, and the X100 Pro runs hotter than usual. It's not serious, just a small blemish.
The X100 Pro isn't all that special in terms of processing power, display or user interface. What sets it apart is the camera system, especially the zoom lens. It is so beautiful that it makes me want to stop and take pictures of my surroundings.
